Is there any expectation on a family member who stays “postpartum”?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think for my in laws especially my MIL, she never dealt with her own MIL in this sense so she had no clue about how fraught the relationship could be and how in the end, the DIL holds all the cards. Her own MIL lived far away and was unwell.

She had only sons and my experience was mirrored with her second son’s wife’s experience having her own first baby. Thanks to my husband (and probably his brother too, for his brothers wife) she has shaped up. But the stuff she pulled at first- it was insane. She’s the one who came and refused to clean/ said she’d only hold the baby, and had us come visit her for a baby shower and put us up on the couch. She was like that for 2-3 years. Like- we’d show up and she’d just reach over and try to take my daughter out of my arms, without asking and without preamble, as if she were her own. I remember once she tried to do that in front of a bunch of people and I just held on. She tried for a full 5-6 seconds! And I just held on. And my daughter started crying. Everyone was looking at my MIL like she was insane and she got so embarassed and irritated. Her own sister even came up later and was like “we all see you just so you know”. She once told my daughter when she was like 18 months- so, not understanding anything MIL was saying- “one day you’ll be a teenager who hates her mother and you can come live with grandma!” And laughed. In front of me and many others. She announced to us when my daughter was 2 or 3 that it was time for us to drop the baby off with her for a month in the summer because “you can’t say she isn’t old enough anymore and this is what I’ve always planned- to have my grandchildren with me all summer”. I mean I could go on and on and on. Waking her up from naps early as soon as I wasn’t looking so that she could play with her, giving her an iPad when she was 3 despite me specifically saying no, and crying when I took it and gave it away. The final straw was when my oldest was maybe 5 years old and I overheard my daughter telling MIL she wasn’t allowed to watch cartoons before bed and my MIL goes “it doesn’t matter what your mother says, you’re with grandma now and you don’t need to listen to your mothers rules, only to grandmas rules. And it will just be a secret.” After that we went no contact for a couple years and it was liberating. She still doesn’t get it either.

We barely see her anymore and she calls and yells at us that we are keeping her grandkids away from her. But my husband is amazing and he tells her very plainly that they are not “her grandkids” they are “wife’s (my) children” and that she has burned that bridge long ago.

This is a full-on battle for control. Everyone loses.

Keep telling yourself that but we actually have a very happy family life and good relationships with the other grandparents (my parents and my husbands father and stepmom!). And aunts, uncles, great aunts including my MILs own sister. No one lost here except for my MIL, and she was given like a thousand chances to shape up and stop being nasty to me, the mother of her grandkids. She really, really didn’t realize that I held all the cards until it was too late.

We see her once a year or so now and like I said, she has shaped up in her outward behavior towards me and our kids. She only complains now to my husband, who tells her again and again that she needs to take what she can get at this point. He is fully on my side.

Again- I don’t feel like we have lost a thing at all. I know my husband doesn’t. Maybe MIL does but I do not care.

LOL. You proved my point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you think if a family member asks to stay at a new mom’s house in the week post partum she’s required to help in some way?

I’m asking because MIL stayed for a week a day after I had our baby and didn’t get me a glass of water, didn’t cook a single meal or help in any way and I thought it was really rude.

Oh Jesus can we go for five minutes without bashing a mother in law? Does anyone have any new material?

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ugh I just lost a whole post!!!! Ugh. Well I basically realized that my MIL was not focused on my as a person at all. She was purely focused on her experience of becoming a grandmother and had a lot she really specifically wanted from that. So I became the person who might interfere with her wishes, rather than a woman who was really, really struggling. I am also feeling super triggered by this thread because I have tried to push it all down but it’s important to make sure I never do this to my kids or my spouses. I WANT to remember how much it sucked so I can do better.

And yes husband’s need to stand up for their wives. But MILs and mothers need to treat a woman who has just given birth with decency.

I think the bolded is the common thread through a lot of these experiences.

I remember a friend phrasing it as "they just see you as a vessel." And that nails it. It's very dehumanizing in the postpartum period, when your body is quite literally still knitting itself back together.

I wound up getting full blown PPD when my "baby blues" didn't go away. I sometimes think it wouldn't have happened if I'd just felt a bit more supported and nurtured during that time. When I read about people whose family or culture really dotes on the new mother and supports her until she's truly recovered from childbirth (not after a few days but after like 6 weeks), I just think "that is how to do it." And it's also how you build close family bonds between the baby and the extended family, because instead of viewing the baby as a resources to be fought over and to demand access to, seeing the baby as what they are: a child who needs his or her mother, who needs the family to rally around and create a welcoming environment to grow up within.

Yeah I agree. I really need to get off this thread but for OP: this experience was really shocking to me because it wasn’t any specific disagreement. It was just a change in relationship- I went from relatively easy going DIL to person who might interfere with me basically over night, and if I did something to trigger that I don’t to this day know what it was. It hurt a lot but now more than a decade later we have a new normal. She’s possibly still mad and seeing me as her opponent but I don’t really think so. I know now she really loved and idealized that newborn period and basically wanted to have it again. She doesn’t seem to miss dealing with tween shenanigans the same way and seems over all to think my kids are great so I can’t really be that bad. Anyway it might get better again, especially if you and DH are a united front. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think for my in laws especially my MIL, she never dealt with her own MIL in this sense so she had no clue about how fraught the relationship could be and how in the end, the DIL holds all the cards. Her own MIL lived far away and was unwell.

She had only sons and my experience was mirrored with her second son’s wife’s experience having her own first baby. Thanks to my husband (and probably his brother too, for his brothers wife) she has shaped up. But the stuff she pulled at first- it was insane. She’s the one who came and refused to clean/ said she’d only hold the baby, and had us come visit her for a baby shower and put us up on the couch. She was like that for 2-3 years. Like- we’d show up and she’d just reach over and try to take my daughter out of my arms, without asking and without preamble, as if she were her own. I remember once she tried to do that in front of a bunch of people and I just held on. She tried for a full 5-6 seconds! And I just held on. And my daughter started crying. Everyone was looking at my MIL like she was insane and she got so embarassed and irritated. Her own sister even came up later and was like “we all see you just so you know”. She once told my daughter when she was like 18 months- so, not understanding anything MIL was saying- “one day you’ll be a teenager who hates her mother and you can come live with grandma!” And laughed. In front of me and many others. She announced to us when my daughter was 2 or 3 that it was time for us to drop the baby off with her for a month in the summer because “you can’t say she isn’t old enough anymore and this is what I’ve always planned- to have my grandchildren with me all summer”. I mean I could go on and on and on. Waking her up from naps early as soon as I wasn’t looking so that she could play with her, giving her an iPad when she was 3 despite me specifically saying no, and crying when I took it and gave it away. The final straw was when my oldest was maybe 5 years old and I overheard my daughter telling MIL she wasn’t allowed to watch cartoons before bed and my MIL goes “it doesn’t matter what your mother says, you’re with grandma now and you don’t need to listen to your mothers rules, only to grandmas rules. And it will just be a secret.” After that we went no contact for a couple years and it was liberating. She still doesn’t get it either.

We barely see her anymore and she calls and yells at us that we are keeping her grandkids away from her. But my husband is amazing and he tells her very plainly that they are not “her grandkids” they are “wife’s (my) children” and that she has burned that bridge long ago.

This is a full-on battle for control. Everyone loses.

I agree, this is exactly what op should not spiral into.

It is definitely super weird if the husband is saying something like “these are my wife’s children” and not something to aspire to.

He said it in response to my MIL demanding that she be allowed to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants, with our kids because “these are MY grandkids”. She would say it with such righteousness. It was completely appropriate to say, “they’re your grandkids but they’re her KIDS and you can’t take them from her all summer just because you want to.”

Everyone knows she can’t just take them, though, so why are you threatened by her behavior?

Holy cr@p

These women just gave birth with enough hormones in them to cause contractions enough to push the equivalent of cantaloupe out of their vaginas.

Yes, these hormones are going to make them protective and maybe a little irrational at times. What did you think?

Dramatic much?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m the PP with the baby snatcher MIL. Like many couples, we try to have major communications with ILs come from my husband. So I was not present at the conversation where he told them that they needed to stay in a hotel. So when they showed up with suitcases and started making themselves at home my sleep deprived brain was really struggling. Had he not actually told them that they needed to stay at a hotel? Had he somehow implied he didn’t really mean it like they said? Who knows, I honestly still don’t understand the level of entitlement they were projecting! I/we did what we could prior to the birth but people have to be decent. Also how are you supposed to know what you’re going to need beforehand? I sure as sh*t was not expecting to be destroyed to the extent I was by my birth experience. I have never felt as battered and exhausted as I did at that moment in time and I’ve spent significant time in the ICU with a life threatening illness. I think there is a lot of white washing of the experience of pregnancy and child birth and a lack of understanding that it can be fine or it can kill you and it can be anything in between. So if you are going to show up in someone’s life at that time you should be ready to be helpful or at ASK what they need or you should wait until they recover.

+100 on not knowing what you need beforehand. Like you just have no idea what state you are going to be in mentally and there is really not any way to prepare for it. The point is that older generations should actually know a bit better and be ready to offer it, I am honestly baffled that a woman who had been through childbirth would pull some of the crap people are talking about on the thread but they all did. I am guessing they all had even worse experiences and are just paying it forward? Women have long been treated like crap around childbirth. But wow would it be great if they would instead think, with empathy, that this is an opportunity for them to break a negative cycle and offer the next generation something they never had, rather than taking it out on their daughters and daughters-in-law. Just deeply dysfunctional.

I think part of the disconnect is generational differences in maternity care, or at least it was in my family. My MIL perceived me on day 1 after baby was born and when I was already home as a woman who had given birth at least 8 days ago, because her birth experience included a weeklong stay in a hospital with a nursery and bottle feeding at night. Not one night in a hospital with a newborn sleeping next to her. So I was still learning how to go to the bathroom and hadn’t slept in 48 hours but she was treating me like someone who’d been rested and bathed and fed 3x/day and slept through the night.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:7 hours. In a car. With a 3 week old?!

Not ONE person said “hey, this seems like a bad idea?”

Wtf. You win the thread. I’m so sorry, PP.

Babe, it was 7 hours each way. I am not winning anything here. And actually in retrospect it was definitely more than 7 hours total of travel time because she was an infant and I was nursing and did not have the hang of pumping (or really anything) at that time, so I remember having to stop multiple times both ways so I could nurse. I sat in the back with the baby and was just kind of catatonic the whole time.

Thinking about it is upsetting me, I think I'm going to have to leave this thread. But yeah, I have some big feelings about the expectations placed on brand new moms to make their babies available to eager grandparents as rapidly as possible regardless of the mother's actual needs. I am team mom on this one no matter what.

Omg, you just reminded me of a long-forgotten drive from Boston to Albany with my 3 month old that took 9 hours. It was to go to one of DH’s friend’s weddings, and we didn’t even live in Boston. DH was flying in from a work trip and I had to fly in with DC solo from Chicago where we lived at the time. And then drove straight from the airport.

I’ve blocked out details and stops but remember my DH being shocked 45 minutes in that you can’t just feed a baby while you drive. Jackwagon moron.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think for my in laws especially my MIL, she never dealt with her own MIL in this sense so she had no clue about how fraught the relationship could be and how in the end, the DIL holds all the cards. Her own MIL lived far away and was unwell.

She had only sons and my experience was mirrored with her second son’s wife’s experience having her own first baby. Thanks to my husband (and probably his brother too, for his brothers wife) she has shaped up. But the stuff she pulled at first- it was insane. She’s the one who came and refused to clean/ said she’d only hold the baby, and had us come visit her for a baby shower and put us up on the couch. She was like that for 2-3 years. Like- we’d show up and she’d just reach over and try to take my daughter out of my arms, without asking and without preamble, as if she were her own. I remember once she tried to do that in front of a bunch of people and I just held on. She tried for a full 5-6 seconds! And I just held on. And my daughter started crying. Everyone was looking at my MIL like she was insane and she got so embarassed and irritated. Her own sister even came up later and was like “we all see you just so you know”. She once told my daughter when she was like 18 months- so, not understanding anything MIL was saying- “one day you’ll be a teenager who hates her mother and you can come live with grandma!” And laughed. In front of me and many others. She announced to us when my daughter was 2 or 3 that it was time for us to drop the baby off with her for a month in the summer because “you can’t say she isn’t old enough anymore and this is what I’ve always planned- to have my grandchildren with me all summer”. I mean I could go on and on and on. Waking her up from naps early as soon as I wasn’t looking so that she could play with her, giving her an iPad when she was 3 despite me specifically saying no, and crying when I took it and gave it away. The final straw was when my oldest was maybe 5 years old and I overheard my daughter telling MIL she wasn’t allowed to watch cartoons before bed and my MIL goes “it doesn’t matter what your mother says, you’re with grandma now and you don’t need to listen to your mothers rules, only to grandmas rules. And it will just be a secret.” After that we went no contact for a couple years and it was liberating. She still doesn’t get it either.

We barely see her anymore and she calls and yells at us that we are keeping her grandkids away from her. But my husband is amazing and he tells her very plainly that they are not “her grandkids” they are “wife’s (my) children” and that she has burned that bridge long ago.

This is a full-on battle for control. Everyone loses.

I agree, this is exactly what op should not spiral into.

It is definitely super weird if the husband is saying something like “these are my wife’s children” and not something to aspire to.

He said it in response to my MIL demanding that she be allowed to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants, with our kids because “these are MY grandkids”. She would say it with such righteousness. It was completely appropriate to say, “they’re your grandkids but they’re her KIDS and you can’t take them from her all summer just because you want to.”

Everyone knows she can’t just take them, though, so why are you threatened by her behavior?

Holy cr@p

These women just gave birth with enough hormones in them to cause contractions enough to push the equivalent of cantaloupe out of their vaginas.

Yes, these hormones are going to make them protective and maybe a little irrational at times. What did you think?

Dramatic much?

A little bit. Maybe some of these are older women who have a harder time.

We moved when I was three months pregnant and I didn’t know anyone. I was home alone a lot but we took a lot of walks in our scenic beach town. When my husband came home from work we went to do something outdoors. I slept when he slept and with that was never tired. It was fine with just the three of us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think for my in laws especially my MIL, she never dealt with her own MIL in this sense so she had no clue about how fraught the relationship could be and how in the end, the DIL holds all the cards. Her own MIL lived far away and was unwell.

She had only sons and my experience was mirrored with her second son’s wife’s experience having her own first baby. Thanks to my husband (and probably his brother too, for his brothers wife) she has shaped up. But the stuff she pulled at first- it was insane. She’s the one who came and refused to clean/ said she’d only hold the baby, and had us come visit her for a baby shower and put us up on the couch. She was like that for 2-3 years. Like- we’d show up and she’d just reach over and try to take my daughter out of my arms, without asking and without preamble, as if she were her own. I remember once she tried to do that in front of a bunch of people and I just held on. She tried for a full 5-6 seconds! And I just held on. And my daughter started crying. Everyone was looking at my MIL like she was insane and she got so embarassed and irritated. Her own sister even came up later and was like “we all see you just so you know”. She once told my daughter when she was like 18 months- so, not understanding anything MIL was saying- “one day you’ll be a teenager who hates her mother and you can come live with grandma!” And laughed. In front of me and many others. She announced to us when my daughter was 2 or 3 that it was time for us to drop the baby off with her for a month in the summer because “you can’t say she isn’t old enough anymore and this is what I’ve always planned- to have my grandchildren with me all summer”. I mean I could go on and on and on. Waking her up from naps early as soon as I wasn’t looking so that she could play with her, giving her an iPad when she was 3 despite me specifically saying no, and crying when I took it and gave it away. The final straw was when my oldest was maybe 5 years old and I overheard my daughter telling MIL she wasn’t allowed to watch cartoons before bed and my MIL goes “it doesn’t matter what your mother says, you’re with grandma now and you don’t need to listen to your mothers rules, only to grandmas rules. And it will just be a secret.” After that we went no contact for a couple years and it was liberating. She still doesn’t get it either.

We barely see her anymore and she calls and yells at us that we are keeping her grandkids away from her. But my husband is amazing and he tells her very plainly that they are not “her grandkids” they are “wife’s (my) children” and that she has burned that bridge long ago.

This is a full-on battle for control. Everyone loses.

I agree, this is exactly what op should not spiral into.

It is definitely super weird if the husband is saying something like “these are my wife’s children” and not something to aspire to.

He said it in response to my MIL demanding that she be allowed to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants, with our kids because “these are MY grandkids”. She would say it with such righteousness. It was completely appropriate to say, “they’re your grandkids but they’re her KIDS and you can’t take them from her all summer just because you want to.”

Everyone knows she can’t just take them, though, so why are you threatened by her behavior?

Holy cr@p

These women just gave birth with enough hormones in them to cause contractions enough to push the equivalent of cantaloupe out of their vaginas.

Yes, these hormones are going to make them protective and maybe a little irrational at times. What did you think?

Dramatic much?

A little bit. Maybe some of these are older women who have a harder time.

We moved when I was three months pregnant and I didn’t know anyone. I was home alone a lot but we took a lot of walks in our scenic beach town. When my husband came home from work we went to do something outdoors. I slept when he slept and with that was never tired. It was fine with just the three of us.

So you clearly didn’t have any problems with overbearing in laws coming and making you wait on them, or taking your baby from you when you were trying to feed them, or waking you up when you were napping, or demanding you drive hours and hours to visit them when you were a few weeks post partum. That’s great for you and I’m certainly envious. But calling other women dramatic who 1) DID have these family problems and 2) possibly did have postpartum anxiety and depression that you were lucky enough to avoid, is tone deaf.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Super rude. I remember my MIL doing this after my first was born. She sat on the couch and snuggled the baby while I did housework and even announced “I just want to sit here and snuggle my grandchild!” as I worked. I learned my lesson about being passive and told my DH she wasn’t welcome after our second was born unless she wanted to come and clean and cook all week with no expectations to hold the baby.

She learned her lesson too I guess and showed up and cleaned all week and brought me snacks and didn’t ask to hold the baby.

It's one thing to ask for help cooking and cleaning, but this is just b-wordy...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My ILs came for lunch when I was PP and my MIL yelled at me for following medical advice to feed my sleepy baby in just a diaper. Never once asked me how I was doing. They acted like my baby was a trophy that belonged to them. I was livid. She kept acting like this for a few years and I lost my cool with her a few times.

Maybe it is because I got mad at her or maybe it is just time, but she doesn't do this anymore now that DC is in elementary school. She is actually incredibly sweet with me and I feel spoiled when we visit them. Babies are hard and new grandparents don't always know what to do (they think they remember but they don't).

It totally makes sense to feel angry and is justified. Of course a postpartum mother should be cared for and if she isn't, that's wrong and gross.

Umm... and new moms are inexperienced and hormonal. Perhaps everyone should have grace for each other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think for my in laws especially my MIL, she never dealt with her own MIL in this sense so she had no clue about how fraught the relationship could be and how in the end, the DIL holds all the cards. Her own MIL lived far away and was unwell.

She had only sons and my experience was mirrored with her second son’s wife’s experience having her own first baby. Thanks to my husband (and probably his brother too, for his brothers wife) she has shaped up. But the stuff she pulled at first- it was insane. She’s the one who came and refused to clean/ said she’d only hold the baby, and had us come visit her for a baby shower and put us up on the couch. She was like that for 2-3 years. Like- we’d show up and she’d just reach over and try to take my daughter out of my arms, without asking and without preamble, as if she were her own. I remember once she tried to do that in front of a bunch of people and I just held on. She tried for a full 5-6 seconds! And I just held on. And my daughter started crying. Everyone was looking at my MIL like she was insane and she got so embarassed and irritated. Her own sister even came up later and was like “we all see you just so you know”. She once told my daughter when she was like 18 months- so, not understanding anything MIL was saying- “one day you’ll be a teenager who hates her mother and you can come live with grandma!” And laughed. In front of me and many others. She announced to us when my daughter was 2 or 3 that it was time for us to drop the baby off with her for a month in the summer because “you can’t say she isn’t old enough anymore and this is what I’ve always planned- to have my grandchildren with me all summer”. I mean I could go on and on and on. Waking her up from naps early as soon as I wasn’t looking so that she could play with her, giving her an iPad when she was 3 despite me specifically saying no, and crying when I took it and gave it away. The final straw was when my oldest was maybe 5 years old and I overheard my daughter telling MIL she wasn’t allowed to watch cartoons before bed and my MIL goes “it doesn’t matter what your mother says, you’re with grandma now and you don’t need to listen to your mothers rules, only to grandmas rules. And it will just be a secret.” After that we went no contact for a couple years and it was liberating. She still doesn’t get it either.

We barely see her anymore and she calls and yells at us that we are keeping her grandkids away from her. But my husband is amazing and he tells her very plainly that they are not “her grandkids” they are “wife’s (my) children” and that she has burned that bridge long ago.

This is a full-on battle for control. Everyone loses.

I agree, this is exactly what op should not spiral into.

It is definitely super weird if the husband is saying something like “these are my wife’s children” and not something to aspire to.

He said it in response to my MIL demanding that she be allowed to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants, with our kids because “these are MY grandkids”. She would say it with such righteousness. It was completely appropriate to say, “they’re your grandkids but they’re her KIDS and you can’t take them from her all summer just because you want to.”

Everyone knows she can’t just take them, though, so why are you threatened by her behavior?

Holy cr@p

These women just gave birth with enough hormones in them to cause contractions enough to push the equivalent of cantaloupe out of their vaginas.

Yes, these hormones are going to make them protective and maybe a little irrational at times. What did you think?

Dramatic much?

A little bit. Maybe some of these are older women who have a harder time.

We moved when I was three months pregnant and I didn’t know anyone. I was home alone a lot but we took a lot of walks in our scenic beach town. When my husband came home from work we went to do something outdoors. I slept when he slept and with that was never tired. It was fine with just the three of us.

So you clearly didn’t have any problems with overbearing in laws coming and making you wait on them, or taking your baby from you when you were trying to feed them, or waking you up when you were napping, or demanding you drive hours and hours to visit them when you were a few weeks post partum. That’s great for you and I’m certainly envious. But calling other women dramatic who 1) DID have these family problems and 2) possibly did have postpartum anxiety and depression that you were lucky enough to avoid, is tone deaf.

Perhaps because we didn’t allow it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think for my in laws especially my MIL, she never dealt with her own MIL in this sense so she had no clue about how fraught the relationship could be and how in the end, the DIL holds all the cards. Her own MIL lived far away and was unwell.

She had only sons and my experience was mirrored with her second son’s wife’s experience having her own first baby. Thanks to my husband (and probably his brother too, for his brothers wife) she has shaped up. But the stuff she pulled at first- it was insane. She’s the one who came and refused to clean/ said she’d only hold the baby, and had us come visit her for a baby shower and put us up on the couch. She was like that for 2-3 years. Like- we’d show up and she’d just reach over and try to take my daughter out of my arms, without asking and without preamble, as if she were her own. I remember once she tried to do that in front of a bunch of people and I just held on. She tried for a full 5-6 seconds! And I just held on. And my daughter started crying. Everyone was looking at my MIL like she was insane and she got so embarassed and irritated. Her own sister even came up later and was like “we all see you just so you know”. She once told my daughter when she was like 18 months- so, not understanding anything MIL was saying- “one day you’ll be a teenager who hates her mother and you can come live with grandma!” And laughed. In front of me and many others. She announced to us when my daughter was 2 or 3 that it was time for us to drop the baby off with her for a month in the summer because “you can’t say she isn’t old enough anymore and this is what I’ve always planned- to have my grandchildren with me all summer”. I mean I could go on and on and on. Waking her up from naps early as soon as I wasn’t looking so that she could play with her, giving her an iPad when she was 3 despite me specifically saying no, and crying when I took it and gave it away. The final straw was when my oldest was maybe 5 years old and I overheard my daughter telling MIL she wasn’t allowed to watch cartoons before bed and my MIL goes “it doesn’t matter what your mother says, you’re with grandma now and you don’t need to listen to your mothers rules, only to grandmas rules. And it will just be a secret.” After that we went no contact for a couple years and it was liberating. She still doesn’t get it either.

We barely see her anymore and she calls and yells at us that we are keeping her grandkids away from her. But my husband is amazing and he tells her very plainly that they are not “her grandkids” they are “wife’s (my) children” and that she has burned that bridge long ago.

This is a full-on battle for control. Everyone loses.

I agree, this is exactly what op should not spiral into.

It is definitely super weird if the husband is saying something like “these are my wife’s children” and not something to aspire to.

He said it in response to my MIL demanding that she be allowed to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants, with our kids because “these are MY grandkids”. She would say it with such righteousness. It was completely appropriate to say, “they’re your grandkids but they’re her KIDS and you can’t take them from her all summer just because you want to.”

Everyone knows she can’t just take them, though, so why are you threatened by her behavior?

Holy cr@p

These women just gave birth with enough hormones in them to cause contractions enough to push the equivalent of cantaloupe out of their vaginas.

Yes, these hormones are going to make them protective and maybe a little irrational at times. What did you think?

Dramatic much?

A little bit. Maybe some of these are older women who have a harder time.

We moved when I was three months pregnant and I didn’t know anyone. I was home alone a lot but we took a lot of walks in our scenic beach town. When my husband came home from work we went to do something outdoors. I slept when he slept and with that was never tired. It was fine with just the three of us.

So you clearly didn’t have any problems with overbearing in laws coming and making you wait on them, or taking your baby from you when you were trying to feed them, or waking you up when you were napping, or demanding you drive hours and hours to visit them when you were a few weeks post partum. That’s great for you and I’m certainly envious. But calling other women dramatic who 1) DID have these family problems and 2) possibly did have postpartum anxiety and depression that you were lucky enough to avoid, is tone deaf.

Perhaps because we didn’t allow it.

So you anticipated that they would not be helpful and didn't invite them/ let them come from the start. That's great to have that foresight. I had that foresight for my second child but was blindsided by PPD/PPA and the total lack of empathy or even basic help from my MIL when she came to visit us that first week. It sucked. I wouldn't have allowed it if I had known better, but , I didn't yet. And it was really terrible for MIL to do it to a vulnerable, crying new mom (which is what I was).

Interestingly, I had zero PPD/ PPA with my second and I slept totally fine (in broken up chunks obviously). I felt way better. I could have handled in law craziness, but, thankfully, didn't have to because I'd learned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Super rude. I remember my MIL doing this after my first was born. She sat on the couch and snuggled the baby while I did housework and even announced “I just want to sit here and snuggle my grandchild!” as I worked. I learned my lesson about being passive and told my DH she wasn’t welcome after our second was born unless she wanted to come and clean and cook all week with no expectations to hold the baby.

She learned her lesson too I guess and showed up and cleaned all week and brought me snacks and didn’t ask to hold the baby.

It's one thing to ask for help cooking and cleaning, but this is just b-wordy...

Nope. I said, she isn't coming this year. I cited all the reasons- the taking the baby from my arms when she came into the hospital room and not giving her back when I asked (and I had just had a C section and couldn't get up to physically take her back). The insisting on coming in to visit every day and not leaving when I asked her to because I needed to try to shower or poop or just wanted to sleep (again, it wasn't easy to physically remove her from the hospital room, I was recovering). The staying at our house for a week- which I had been fine with when she offered it! Extra hands! Loving grandma!- and not even doing the bare minimum such as ordering food or emptying the dishwasher once or twice. She came into my bedroom without knocking and would take the baby out of the basinet and tell me "I'll bring her back later! I want my grandma snuggles!" and then ignore my texts to bring her back , making me get up (again- C section recovery) to go find her out on the back deck or wherever she was, to find my own F-ing brand new baby because my boobs were leaking. And of course watching TV, holding my baby, and telling me "I know I'm supposed to help cook and clean but I really just prefer to hold my granddaughter". My husband witnessed some of this but not all of it, and he was adjusting to being a dad too, so it wasn't easy for him to stand up to his mom so unexpectedly. I had no warning she'd be like this. It was partially PPD/PPA but it truly felt on a visceral level that she was trying to take my child. Especially when she'd come in and take her out of the basinet while I was napping and then not respond when I called her to see where my baby was (that only happened once thankfully because I started screaming when I couldn't find my daughter in her basinet).

My husband had sort of blacked a lot of it out I guess but I reminded him of it and he called her and told her she couldn't come. Apparently she begged for weeks (I stayed totally out of it, he fielded every single call) and the compromise was, she could come and see the baby but she couldn't touch her because I was still panicked about how she used to take the baby from me all the time last time. I don't regret it at all. She's not more important in the situation here, I'm more important after the birth of my child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Super rude. I remember my MIL doing this after my first was born. She sat on the couch and snuggled the baby while I did housework and even announced “I just want to sit here and snuggle my grandchild!” as I worked. I learned my lesson about being passive and told my DH she wasn’t welcome after our second was born unless she wanted to come and clean and cook all week with no expectations to hold the baby.

She learned her lesson too I guess and showed up and cleaned all week and brought me snacks and didn’t ask to hold the baby.

It's one thing to ask for help cooking and cleaning, but this is just b-wordy...

Nope. I said, she isn't coming this year. I cited all the reasons- the taking the baby from my arms when she came into the hospital room and not giving her back when I asked (and I had just had a C section and couldn't get up to physically take her back). The insisting on coming in to visit every day and not leaving when I asked her to because I needed to try to shower or poop or just wanted to sleep (again, it wasn't easy to physically remove her from the hospital room, I was recovering). The staying at our house for a week- which I had been fine with when she offered it! Extra hands! Loving grandma!- and not even doing the bare minimum such as ordering food or emptying the dishwasher once or twice. She came into my bedroom without knocking and would take the baby out of the basinet and tell me "I'll bring her back later! I want my grandma snuggles!" and then ignore my texts to bring her back , making me get up (again- C section recovery) to go find her out on the back deck or wherever she was, to find my own F-ing brand new baby because my boobs were leaking. And of course watching TV, holding my baby, and telling me "I know I'm supposed to help cook and clean but I really just prefer to hold my granddaughter". My husband witnessed some of this but not all of it, and he was adjusting to being a dad too, so it wasn't easy for him to stand up to his mom so unexpectedly. I had no warning she'd be like this. It was partially PPD/PPA but it truly felt on a visceral level that she was trying to take my child. Especially when she'd come in and take her out of the basinet while I was napping and then not respond when I called her to see where my baby was (that only happened once thankfully because I started screaming when I couldn't find my daughter in her basinet).

My husband had sort of blacked a lot of it out I guess but I reminded him of it and he called her and told her she couldn't come. Apparently she begged for weeks (I stayed totally out of it, he fielded every single call) and the compromise was, she could come and see the baby but she couldn't touch her because I was still panicked about how she used to take the baby from me all the time last time. I don't regret it at all. She's not more important in the situation here, I'm more important after the birth of my child.

Still a B move from you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Super rude. I remember my MIL doing this after my first was born. She sat on the couch and snuggled the baby while I did housework and even announced “I just want to sit here and snuggle my grandchild!” as I worked. I learned my lesson about being passive and told my DH she wasn’t welcome after our second was born unless she wanted to come and clean and cook all week with no expectations to hold the baby.

She learned her lesson too I guess and showed up and cleaned all week and brought me snacks and didn’t ask to hold the baby.

It's one thing to ask for help cooking and cleaning, but this is just b-wordy...

Nope. I said, she isn't coming this year. I cited all the reasons- the taking the baby from my arms when she came into the hospital room and not giving her back when I asked (and I had just had a C section and couldn't get up to physically take her back). The insisting on coming in to visit every day and not leaving when I asked her to because I needed to try to shower or poop or just wanted to sleep (again, it wasn't easy to physically remove her from the hospital room, I was recovering). The staying at our house for a week- which I had been fine with when she offered it! Extra hands! Loving grandma!- and not even doing the bare minimum such as ordering food or emptying the dishwasher once or twice. She came into my bedroom without knocking and would take the baby out of the basinet and tell me "I'll bring her back later! I want my grandma snuggles!" and then ignore my texts to bring her back , making me get up (again- C section recovery) to go find her out on the back deck or wherever she was, to find my own F-ing brand new baby because my boobs were leaking. And of course watching TV, holding my baby, and telling me "I know I'm supposed to help cook and clean but I really just prefer to hold my granddaughter". My husband witnessed some of this but not all of it, and he was adjusting to being a dad too, so it wasn't easy for him to stand up to his mom so unexpectedly. I had no warning she'd be like this. It was partially PPD/PPA but it truly felt on a visceral level that she was trying to take my child. Especially when she'd come in and take her out of the basinet while I was napping and then not respond when I called her to see where my baby was (that only happened once thankfully because I started screaming when I couldn't find my daughter in her basinet).

My husband had sort of blacked a lot of it out I guess but I reminded him of it and he called her and told her she couldn't come. Apparently she begged for weeks (I stayed totally out of it, he fielded every single call) and the compromise was, she could come and see the baby but she couldn't touch her because I was still panicked about how she used to take the baby from me all the time last time. I don't regret it at all. She's not more important in the situation here, I'm more important after the birth of my child.

Still a B move from you.

Sure. I'll send someone to steal your. baby out of your room while you sleep, after surgery that makes it hard for you to get up and walk downstairs, instruct them to go out in the backyard and not answer their phone when you call them over and over. And I'll ask them to routinely take the baby and say "no, not yet" and turn their backs and leave the room when you ask for her back. Again, making you get up and waddle after her, but she's faster than you because she didn't just have surgery. I'll also ask her to laugh when you get upset and say "grandma is just having baby snuggles! don't over react!" All of this within the first week of you giving birth. And then I'll say, hey, you're pregnant again? She's coming back! Also, please prepare to cook her 3 meals a day and wash her towels.

See how un-B like you feel.